Cowboys 08 - Luke

HELPLESS TO LOVE

Without warning, he grabbed her and kissed her hard on the mouth. He shocked Valeria so badly she couldn't breathe. No coherent thought emerged from the jumble whirling about in her head. Everything about her simply came to a dead stop.

Just as abruptly Luke broke the kiss and held her at arm's length from him. "Did you like that? Did you want me to do it? Could you stop me from doing it again?"

Exclamations of surprise, nods of protest, pleas for an explanation stumbled over each other in her mind.

He wrapped his arms about her, pulled her tight against his chest. "You're helpless, aren't you? You can't run away and you can't fight me."

She could if she could get over the shock. She had never been held in such an intimate embrace. Not even when dancing in public would a man have dared let his body touch hers. The shock was enormous, disabling.

He kissed her again.

No other man had kissed her on the lips. She had no way to differentiate ruthless from enthusiastic ... or impassioned ... or heedless. Her mind told her she ought to be furious, insulted, violated, even frightened. Her body pleaded with her to give in to Luke's embrace.

The Cowboys
series by Leigh Greenwood:

JAKE

WARD

BUCK

CHET

SEAN

PETE

DREW

The
Seven Brides
series:

ROSE

FERN

IRIS

LAUREL

DAISY

VIOLET

LILY

The Cowboys

Luke

Leigh Greenwood

A LEISURE BOOK
^®
December 2000 Published by

Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc. 276 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10001

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

Copyright © 2000 by Leigh Greenwood

Cover Art by John Ennis.
www.ennisart.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

ISBN 0-8439-4804-3

The name "Leisure Books" and the stylized "L" with design are trademarks of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

Printed in the United States of America.

Chapter One

Arizona Territory, 1887

Luke Attmore had taken on more than a hundred jobs as a hired gun, but none had been as troublesome as this one promised to be. He'd closed the curtains in his hotel room against the heat of the day, but he could see Hans Demel clearly enough. Luke leaned back in his chair, a bottle of expensive brandy on the table before him, the remains of a cigarette in the ashtray. His visitor sat forward, tense, as though he expected to have to spring to his feet any moment.

"Are you sure you understand what I want?"

Hans kept saying things again and again, as if he didn't believe anyone like Luke could understand him. Maybe the heat was getting to him. His clothes were more suitable for a European court than the Arizona Territory. He wore a white shirt with a turned-down collar, a necktie with a large knot, a swallow-tailed coat with three buttons, a waistcoat, and narrow trousers pulled tight over a protruding stomach. Perspiration stood out on his forehead and upper lip in sharp contrast with his polished shoes and slicked-back hair.

"Yes," Luke replied, bored and irritated by this agitated little man. "You want me to escort your client's wife to his ranch. That seems straightforward enough."

"She's not his wife yet," Hans corrected. "The marriage contracts have been signed, but she must reach his ranch before ..."

Luke ignored the drone of Hans's voice. He had never gotten used to the way obscure European countries tied their royal families up in marriages arranged for every possible reason except love. Luke figured love and marriage went together, which made it easier for him to avoid both. He didn't believe in love, didn't understand it. He did understand contracts based on wealth. He worked for the man willing to pay the most money. And Prince Matthais had paid him a great deal.

"I'm not interested in the details," Luke said. "I'll get her to the ranch safely."

"It's not that simple. There's a great deal of money involved."

He'd expected that. The fee wouldn't have been so high otherwise. It was more than he'd made in the previous year, and he was the highest-paid gunman in the country.

"Prince Matthais needs the alliance with Duke Rudolf, but it will only come into effect once the princess reaches the ranch."

Luke had no patience with this kind of intrigue. He'd spent two years in Europe as a soldier of fortune. He'd returned to the West because he never knew when a sworn ally would shoot him in the back. Black-hearted criminals had more honor than blue-blooded aristocrats.

"You must understand that Prince Matthais has many enemies," Hans said, "people who want to see bad things happen to him."

Nobody in the Arizona Territory went around referring to people by royal titles. Heat, dust, and horse manure didn't make a very classy backdrop for royalty.

"The prince isn't my concern," Luke said. "I don't see any problem delivering the princess to her future husband."

"The princess is in danger," Hans said, more agitated than ever. "There are people who will do anything to keep Prince Matthais and Duke Rudolf from joining their houses."

Luke didn't care who married whom, who ascended what throne, who had his throat slit in some dark alleyor some sumptuous bedchamber. He was being hired to deliver his client safe and sound. What happened after that was none of his concern.

"I'll get the princess to the ranch," Luke said.

"Have you hired extra people as I instructed?" Hans asked, nervously wringing his hands.

Luke wasn't used to being
instructed
to do anything. "I've hired two extra men."

"I asked for a dozen."

"These two are as good as a dozen."

"Can you trust them?"

"They're my family," Luke said. Or as close as he'd ever come to having one.

Hans shook his head. "If anything were to happen to the princess, it would be catastrophic. Heads would roll, thrones would topple, empires would-"

"Nothing will happen to the princess!" Luke stood, tired of this little man and his groundless fears. No one bothered Luke Attmore. Those who had been foolish enough to try resided in boot hills around the West. Once it was known Zeke and Hawk were with him, not even in the most toolhardy would attempt to harm this princess. He hoped she was pretty enough to warrant all this trouble. The princesses he had seen caused him to doubt it.

"Two isn't enough," Hans said. "We are paying you enough to hire at least a dozen of the best men."

"I don't need anybody else," Luke said. "But if I did, I've got more family, the dozen good men you're looking for."

"Your family is so big?"

"Yes." Hans didn't have to know it was an adopted family, that half of his brothers were married and nearly a thousand miles away, that he wouldn't call on them even if they'd been in town. They had wives, children, ranches to take care of, lives to live safely and happily. Luke wasn't about to involve any of them in his risky enterprises, especially his real brother, Chet. Chet had spent nine years watching Luke's back. If he thought for a minute his younger brother was in trouble, he'd be on the first train to Arizona. Zeke and Hawk were enough. They weren't married, or likely to be.

"When do I meet the princess?" Luke asked.

Hans started to fret again. "She should have reached Bonner before now."

It didn't surprise Luke that she was late. Once Hans had described the retinue that accompanied the princess on the train-tents, trunks of clothes, carloads of furniture, dishes, minors, servants, food and the stoves on which to prepare it-Luke had marveled that she'd ever left New Orleans. He considered it the height of stupidity to set out over the hot, often barren lands of the West with a retinue more suitable for Napoleon's Europe. At least Napoleon had roads. The Territory didn't even have trails in some places.

He questioned whether he should have accepted this job. He might not have if he hadn't found himself be

coming unaccountably weary of his work. Maybe weary wasn't the right word. Irritable. Nothing pleased him these days. Maybe he ought to head back East to one of those fancy resorts like Saratoga Springs, and sit on the front porch until he could figure out what he wanted.

No, he didn't need to go anywhere. He knew exactly what he wanted. He just couldn't have it. He cursed violently.

"What's wrong?" the little man asked.

"Nothing you can fix," Luke replied.

"Can
you
fix it?"

"No."

Princess Valeria Elizabeth Rose Maria Beatrice Christina of Badenberg didn't like anything she saw as she approached the town of Bonner, but then she hadn't liked anything since she'd been forced to leave her home. This country was impossibly huge, impossibly hot, and impossibly alien. Nothing about it was anything like what she was used to, yet Rudolf expected her to become accustomed to it, to live here and pretend to be happy.

She would never have admitted it, but this country frightened her. She was alone except for her servants. Her parents were dead, her uncle exiled from his throne, her fiance waiting for her at a ranch above the Mogollon Rim, and her friends scattered across Europe. Everything she'd ever known had disappeared. She didn't understand these Americans or their customs, and she had no one to help her learn. Hans and Otto didn't know any more than she did.

But she wasn't allowed to show fear. She had to remain calm and regal. She was a princess.

At least she used to be. She didn't know what she was now.

Her childhood friend, Lillie, had married a wealthy New York banker. She had told Valeria wonderful things about New York, but Hans, responsible for her personal safety, and Otto Sacher, responsible for organizing the journey, hadn't allowed her to go there. She'd had great hopes for New Orleans, but they had smuggled her into the city at night and put her on a train out of town before dawn. They hadn't even let her get off in San Antonio.

Otto's explanation had been that he didn't want to attract attention. She'd tried to convince him a princess would attract less attention in a grand hotel than rambling about the desert in a railway car suitable for the Czar of Russia. Hans said only that Otto made all the decisions, that their only consideration was for her safety, that no one could be safe in a city. Hadn't she been attacked in Rome, Paris, even London?

Valeria wasn't certain she could consider such ineffectual attempts to harm her attacks, but they had sent Hans and Otto into a frenzy. Plans for a sensible passage through the United States had been scrapped, and Otto had hatched this scheme to sneak her in by the back door. She was certain it wouldn't succeed, but no one would listen to her. No one ever had.

She was a princess. She could trace her ancestry back five hundred years. She was rich. Her hand had been sought by men of noble lineage. She had been one of the most important persons in central Europe.

But she was a woman.

"Do they call that collection of mud huts a city?" she asked Otto.

"I'm informed it's adobe, your highness. I believe it's a kind of brick made of local material."

"Mud," Valeria said decisively. The place was surrounded by mountains of stone, yet these crazy Americans built their houses out of mud. They were even more eccentric than she'd been told. "I hope my hotel isn't built out of mud."

"I requested Bonner's finest accommodations," Otto said.

Valeria was under no illusion as to why the haughty ex-Duke Rudolf of Ergonia had sought to marry her even though she was now an ex-princess. She had a fortune; he didn't. He had wanted to use her money to restore himself to the throne his foolish, cruel, and extravagant father had lost a decade earlier. She had only agreed to marry him on the condition that he use her fortune to establish a new life for them in America.